This course examines cultural and literary aspects of sex and gender in nineteenth century America and will engage students interested in history, politics, gender, psychology and literature. Through fiction, poetry, essays, autobiographies and speeches, we will explore what it meant to be a man or a woman, “masculine” or “feminine,” and how these categories shaped the culture at large as well as individual lives. We will explore how sex and gender categories are created and regulated through laws, religious prescriptions, customs, medical practices and representations and how particular groups or individuals confirmed, challenged or altered these categories throughout the nineteenth century. Among topics we’ll explore are courtship and marriage, adultery, homosexuality, “fallenness,” sex and slavery, “Boston marriages,” Fourierism, Woman Rights, black manhood, “miscegenation,” separate spheres ideology, hysteria and neurasthenia, and masculinity and war. Along with primary works, we’ll read short selections from theoretical and historical materials by Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Carol Smith-Rosenberg, and others.